


The Origin of Love

by bannanachan



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-10
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-03-06 22:55:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3151436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bannanachan/pseuds/bannanachan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The history books would keep no record of the bodies you left behind.<br/>The Disciple and The Dolorosa's lives, and deaths, with and without the Signless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Origin of Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StillTicksAway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StillTicksAway/gifts).



You were very, very small when you first met him. Two – maybe three sweeps old? It was so long ago, now, you’re not clear.

You were playing with Cat Mom in the hills when she ran off, like she always did when she smelled prey. You never worried about her doing that, because she was big and strong and beautiful, and she never lost. Besides, it was the only reason you didn’t starve to death.

But then that day, from over the hill, you heard a hiss, and the sound of a motor, and the most terrible high cry, and it was your lusus – you knew her voice, you were sure. You ran towards the noise, through bushes and trees and grass, till you suddenly found her on the ground in a pile of olive blood. You screamed and ran to her, pushing your hands through her fur, trying to identify the wound, green running out and up and over your fingers like water.

You heard a hiss behind you that wasn’t hers, and you turned. Looming above was the creature that had killed your lusus – an adult troll, outlined against the dark Alternian sky in a blinding array of white light. Her eyes glowed yellow and wide, and in one hand she carried a bloodied, revving chainsaw. And you knew you should have done something, attacked her for vengeance or at least run away with your tail between your legs. But all you could do was curl up in a ball, frozen solid and staring up at her as mewling cries escaped your lips.

As you cried, she faltered, glow dissipating around her edges into the night like wisps of mist. She turned the chainsaw off, and her hand lowered down. Too shocked to move, you just stared up at her, and she stared back, blinking a couple of times until her eyes went back to normal.

There was a movement in her skirts. You looked, and standing just behind her, clinging tight to the cloth with a bite in his arm that must have come from Cat Mom, there was a boy your own size. He was bleeding a color you had never seen before, and he didn’t have a sigil. She must have seen you looking, because she reached out a sleeve, pushing him further back and out of your view. Her gaze darted back and forth from him to you, her body still tense and ready.

Slowly, very slowly, the tension sunk out of her shoulders, along with the last few glimmers of unnatural light around her skin. The boy behind her peeked out again, but she didn’t try to stop him this time. Instead, she let out a long, exhausted sigh, and extended the hand that was not being clung to by the boy to you.

You took it.

***

“Just for a short while.” She said. “Until I can find someone else to take care of you.”

Her name was Porrim. You liked the way her lips curled around those letters, poh-rihm, dragging the vowels out with her breath and sharp consonants from her tongue pressed up to the back of her fangs. You didn’t know what the boy’s name was – she wouldn’t tell you, and she wouldn’t let him talk to you. But it was clear after a few hours that you weren’t going to die, and that was better off than you would have been left alone in the desert with Cat Mom's corpse.

She barely spoke to you at first, except to tell you what to do, where to hide, when to eat. You obeyed and tried to stay out of the way. But perigees passed, and then an equinox too, and she didn’t make you leave. You visited hive after hive and even a few towns, scattered over Alternia like pebbles, but she just ushered you and the boy away a few hours before dawn after you’d stayed a little while and nothing came of it. You didn’t leave. Whole seasons passed, and you didn’t leave.

One noon, you woke up in the middle of the day and saw her sitting across from him on the cave floor, smiling and listening to him mumble on about his dreams. She must have been invested in what he was saying, because she didn’t notice you until several minutes had passed. Her gaze froze you to the spot then, and her skin started to glow at the edges like it had when you met her, and for a second you really thought she might kill you. But she looked at the boy, and then told you to go back to bed, so you did.

For the next several perigees, the mumbled words you heard him say were all you could think about. It was nearly half a sweep before anything changed at all.

Early one evening when the moons were low on the horizon, she caught you drawing. You had berries and sticks and bowls full of colors – a big one of dark red and a couple of greens, and one tiny bowl of pink that was the closest color you could find to his. You were dipping your fingers in the bowls and smearing the stuff on the ground. The colors mixed together as you drew and some of them dried out and turned brown, but you were having fun, and didn’t care. You drew trolls with all kinds of horns and sigils holding hands with smiles, and you smiled at them back.

You didn’t notice her watching at first, because Porrim was really good at that. When you did, you dropped the bowl you were holding. It broke, and green paint spilled all over the drawing, washing the tiny trolls away in a tidal wave. You scrambled to speak, but no words came out.

Porrim tilted her head and stared at you for a long time before closing her eyes and exhaling slowly, turning her gaze towards the sky. She looked back at you then with the most peculiar expression before she spoke.

“Do you know how to write, Meulin?”

You shook your head.

“Then it’s high time someone taught you.”

***

You got to talk to the boy starting then. Kankri. His name wasn’t as pretty as hers, but you liked him anyway. He had always seemed quiet to you before, but it turned out that was just because Porrim wouldn't let him talk; once she stopped separating you, he talked all the time. A little too much, actually, but most of it was interesting, so you opted to give him a pass on it. More than that, he was nice – and your age. And you had never had a friend before.

When you weren’t talking to Kankri, or on your feet moving from place to place, you were learning how to write. Porrim had come home one evening with a thick leather book and a whole bag full of pens and chalk and ink and everything you could ever need. You started with the alphabet, then sigils. You glimpsed over at Kankri when you learned those, and then looked right back at the page when you noticed Porrim watching you. Even if you had grown to trust her, and even if you were (sort of) a team, it was abundantly clear to you that even now, one wrong move when it came to him would earn you a chainsaw to the head.

After sigils were words, and sounds, and you had to learn to read, too, which was harder. Porrim brought you some materials, but mostly you were working with schoolfeeds and cheap paperbacks. You didn’t understand the contents of the paperbacks till much later, by which time you were too old to see it as embarrassing. The schoolfeeds were much stranger.

The thing was, you had grown up until then pretty much alone. You’d met a few other troll kids, on and off, wandering through the desert and forest. You’d picked up on things, a few basic rules, like sigils and blood colors. You weren’t even sure where from, come to think of it – maybe it had happened some time you were very young, maybe you had been born knowing. But it wasn’t until you started reading schoolfeeds that you really understood what things were supposed to look like in this world – and how much your life didn’t look like that.

All told, you were not quite four sweeps old when you realized how dangerous your life actually was. And it all revolved around him. But you didn’t talk to him about it; you talked to her.

You pretended to be asleep, and waited until he was. She didn’t leave, ever, until he was asleep. Then, before she could leave the mouth of the cave, you got up. She stopped mid-stride, turning back to where you and Kankri lay. “Meulin. Is something wrong?”

“No.”

“Then go back to sleep, child.”

You looked at her and took a deep breath before speaking. “Porrim, what is he?”

She was silent for a moment and you were worried, for that moment, that she was going to lie to you. That she was going to try to cover it up yet again, to shield him, or maybe to shield you, that she was going to pretend ignorance and tell you to go to sleep again and that this would be your life, forever.

But she didn’t.

“I don’t know much more than you, child. He’s a mutant. That’s all that I can really say for sure.” She said.

“How did he survive?”

She sighed and walked back over to where you lay in your recuperacoon, crouching on the ground across from you with hands in her lap. “I worked in the brooding caverns. That’s what jadebloods do – I’m sure you’ve gathered that by now. I had seen hundreds of grubs die before him, for various reasons – ones that were crippled, or mutant, or slow, or just in the wrong place. But I saw him one day, and – I don’t know. I just knew I had to save him, or I would never have been able to live with myself. So I did, and then I ran. And we’ve been running ever since.”

“Are they true, the things he says?” You asked. “About a world where the hemospectrum doesn’t matter, and – and about love, and tolerance, and all of that? Is it real?”

It took her a moment longer to respond to that, and you held your breath before she spoke. “I don’t know. I think that’s something you’ll have to decide for yourself, in time. I believe it should be, but it doesn’t really matter to me.”

“Then what does?”

She looked you straight in the eye as she spoke. “What matters is that I love him. I love him, and I would go to the end of the world and back for him. And that’s all that matters.”

You thought for a long moment then before responding. “I believe it. And I love him, too.”

She did not hesitate to answer then. “So protect him with me.”

You nodded, and she nodded too before she disappeared into the daylight, so quickly that you didn’t even see her go. You fell asleep that day wondering what it was like for her back when they were alone.

***

You found out why she was so desperate for your promise not long after.

Porrim was quick, and she was smart. You never stayed in one place for too long, and you braved the wilds a lot more often than you braved troll habitats. As soon as there was even a hint of danger, she picked you up and you ran.

But this was Alternia, and it couldn’t last forever.

The three of you were walking, very carefully, through one of the planet’s only major cities. You needed to buy something – you don’t even remember what it was, but it must have been important for her to take the risk at all. Kankri was wearing a hooded cloak that covered his whole body, and she had told him not to take it off it no matter what.

You turned a corner, and you saw. There were five trolls, four midbloods and one rustblood. Adults, but still young, and the rustblood was younger… maybe 8 sweeps. She was on the ground; they weren’t.

Porrim froze, and you could tell she wanted to run, but she couldn’t; you and Kankri weren’t fast like she was. So she stayed frozen and stood in front of you to try to keep you from seeing. You’re pretty sure it worked on Kankri, but you were taller, and farther to the side. So you saw everything.

You heard a little bit of what they were saying, but with all of them talking, the contents were a blur. You could only tell they were violent, and threatening, made up of words like shithive and throb stalk and vermin. She didn’t do anything in return at first, just lay there on the ground with her hands over her head and her legs curved in, horns protruding over her knees and face contorted as they kicked and shoved. Finally something snapped and there was an electric crackle in the air like lighting, and the four of them got shoved back several feet with a whomp. One of them stayed down, but the other three got back up as she was rising to her feet, and two of them grabbed her arms and held her up while the third attacked, punching her in the chest and head and arms and pulling her horns as she cried and cried until she suddenly fell slack and silent.

Porrim took your hand in hers, and you ran while they were distracted, hooting and hollering over their victory. You ran the whole rest of the night, and then had daymares about it happening to Kankri so vivid that you barely felt you’d slept at all when you woke.

You confronted her about it the next day, after he had fallen asleep in her arms. It took a little while to form the words, staring out at her sullenly from across the fire.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” You finally asked.

Without moving her gaze away from her sleeping son, she spoke, quietly. “You knew."

"I didn't know it like _that_." You said. "I hadn't seen. You had. So why didn't you tell me?"

I didn’t know how to start.”

“You couldn't even try?” You asked, forcing yourself to speak in a whisper even though everything in you wanted to yell.

“I don’t know.” She said, and paused again. “Maybe I was scared. Of how you might react. Of how he might react. Maybe I was afraid you’d run away and leave us, and tell them about us.”

“I would never do that. You know that.”

“I know.”

“You can’t treat me like a child,” you said finally, voice shaking. “I know that I am one. But you can’t treat me like one. That’s not what the world is like – I know that now. I love him. I want to protect him. So I need to know what I'm up against. And you can’t lie to me, no matter how bad it is. Okay?”

For a split second, she hesitated. But she nodded, and in the relief of that your anxieties vanished far enough for you to sleep soundly all the next day.

***

It wasn’t always scary like that. Most of the time it wasn’t like that at all – it was joyous, and loving, and the three of you were happy. Every morning before bed Kankri told you stories, and you and she would listen to him in rapture. The words he said, the way he said them, it was beautiful, and you couldn’t get enough. You transcribed every word and you drew while you walked through the whole night, swirls of color forming fantastic visions in the margins.

Shortly after he turned five sweeps old, he stopped partway through the story he was telling and you both perked up. It wasn’t like him to stop like that, and Porrim was about to interrupt when he spoke instead.

“Mom, I don’t want to do this any more.”

Porrim didn’t miss a beat. “Do what?”

“I don’t want to talk about this stuff like this, to you. You and Meulin already know all my stories, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t change anything. I want to talk about it out there… I want everyone else to know, too. If it’s only you, and no one else hears it, then it won’t matter.”

“That is a very dangerous idea, child.” Porrim replied, her voice low.

“But I’m right.” He objected. “You know I’m right. You believe me, don’t you? So you know I’m right. We can’t keep this to ourselves, it’s too important. We need to help people, to save them. I need to save them. And I want your help.”

She didn’t say anything, so he turned to you. “Please, Meulin, tell her. I know this is what’s right, and you do too. There are so many things that are wrong, and we can change them. I can make them right – it’s what I was made for. Help me. Please.”

A noise caught in your throat as you stared at him, pride and fear mixing into a ball in the pit of your stomach. “I will.” You said.

He turned to her. “And you?”

She looked helpless as she replied. “If this is what you want, my son, then I am with you. As I am always.”

In an instant, his face brightened into a wide grin and he tackled both of you to the cave floor with a hug, and his joy was more than enough for you to swallow your trepidations and laugh with him. You saw her face, and she smiled with him too.

A few perigees later, the three of you made it happen. The crowd wasn’t big, and composed of mostly the bored and drunk, and it was obvious that he was barely even holding their attention. But a few of them seemed interested, if only because they found him amusing, and he was so excited over that that he could barely sleep the next dawn. He spoke even more beautifully when it was to a crowd who needed the persuading, and you were in love with him beyond reason, writing your devotion into every word.

***

Things started changing then. Every few perigees, when the place and time were right (when it was as safe as it could be), he spoke, and – remarkably – they listened. You and Porrim stood vigilant watch over the crowd. You didn’t have a hint of trouble for the first couple sweeps, even when he started getting popular and people started coming just to see him, sometimes for miles. It was mostly lowbloods, and the highbloods that came were dumb enough to find it funny instead of threatening coming from a wriggler. He greeted them all with smiles and handshakes and sincerity, and it was beautiful. Even Porrim warmed to the whole thing, making small talk with the crowds and offering food to the more desperate trolls. She still seemed nervous, and you were too sometimes. But you could both see that you were doing good work. And it made him happy, so it made you happy too.

The crowds got bigger. You found new places to hide and new places to preach, and new reasons to fight. You found Mituna when you were eight sweeps old and he was being hunted for prey by a highblood gang, and you kept him safe. You took care of each other, and Kankri loved you back, and life was perfect. Not as safe as it once was, when the crowds grew full with highbloods and you and Porrim got into confrontations nightly. He told you never to make them leave, only to take their weapons and keep an eye out. He said that they deserved to hear it too. He said that they were scared of what he said, and he wasn’t going to justify their fears. You did what he said, but you wanted to explode sometimes.

You talked to her about it, and she laughed. “That’s what love is, child. Take it from me. Religion too, I hear. But you will get no argument from me. I would slay them all to pieces if it were to protect him, and I know you know that well.”

“So why don’t you?” You asked.

“Because it would be for me, not him, to start. But also because unfortunately, he is usually right. We wouldn’t make very good disciples if we acted against his word, would we?”

She was right, as usual when it came to him. You may have been his most devoted follower, but you never forgot that she was his first. He was hers before he was yours, and you tried not to be jealous of that. It wasn’t your role, and you didn’t want nor need it to be. It wasn’t her you were jealous of; it was him.

Maybe you’d never be his first, and that was fine, because you were so much more. But as for her, you were never hers at all, not for a second. You knew you weren’t. Not like he was, the center of her universe and you of all people couldn’t blame her for that but it didn’t make it easy on you. You barely had a lusus, and you never had a mother like he did. The older you got, the more obvious it became. While was still her child, you were just her partner. And you resented her, as terrible as that made you feel, for never being able to love you like she did him.

The closer you got to him, the further you got from her. Slowly, inexorably, inevitably, you were losing Porrim. Even though you were with her all the time, even though the love between the four of you was a bond so strong that nothing in the universe could break it. It wasn’t about the four of you, it was about the two of you; and you were losing her.

You let it happen. You didn’t know what else to do. She was there for you during the worst of it, and you had to accept that was enough, no matter what resentment you might have felt.

***

Sweeps passed. You traveled constantly, and the further you traveled, the bigger the crowds got. The bigger the crowds got, the more dangerous your life was. So while you were ever-faithful in transcribing his teachings, you became just as faithful in listening to hers.

 _Protect him with me_ , she said, so you did. It was the only thing left that you did together any more, protect him. Because eventually, the Empire noticed you. And when they did, thinning the crowds with words alone was not enough.

The history books would keep no record of the bodies you left behind, the ones written by you or by the Empire. But she watched over him while you hunted down indigos, and you watched over him while she hunted down purples, and Kankri never knew a single thing. Mituna suspected, but he didn’t ask you and he didn’t tell him. You knew what you were doing was wrong, that it was the opposite of what he wanted. But you also knew that if you and Porrim stopped hunting, there would be no more sermons; there would be no more anything.

You only talked about it with her once. It was a late morning and Kankri and Mituna had long ago fallen asleep, but you stayed, waiting. Worried, because you knew, and they didn’t, where she had disappeared to. You waited so long you almost nodded off, until a shadow outlined in brightness appeared in the cave entryway. You sat straight up and saw her stagger in, covered in blood from head to toe. Some of it was purple; some of it was jade.

You ran towards her, and she fell right into your arms, her body suddenly small and fragile in your grasp. You panicked so badly you almost woke Kankri – but you couldn’t let him see her like this.

You set her down on the cave floor and opened her shirt. There was a gash in her side, hard to see below her glowing skin, but it was bad for sure. You reached to your sylladex for bandages, for anything, but she held out a hand to stop you.

“Wait.” She said, voice low and weak. “Just wait. I’ll be fine, Meulin, don’t worry – just wait.”

“But – ”

“Please.”

You stopped. You waited. Slowly – but more quickly than it should have – you watched her wound heal, and the glow of her skin subside. You were scared, but not surprised. You’d known she was a shadow dropper since you were a child, you’d just never asked for details. You hadn’t wanted them, and you figured she would have told you if she wanted. But she was so exhausted, and so in pain, and you couldn’t just sit there.

“What happened?” You finally asked, voice low in the near dark.

She let out a long, shaky breath before answering. “I won.”

“Do you ever regret it?” You asked, after a moment of silence.

She laughed, mirthlessly and quietly. “Every time.”

“You told me once that we wouldn’t make good disciples if we acted against his word.” You said. “Do you still believe that?”

She waited a long moment before answering, and you held your breath, worried that she might tell you exactly what you didn’t want to hear.

“Do you know why my adult name means mother of sorrows, child?”

You shook your head, so she kept going.

“The first time Kankri spoke to me about these things – about equality, and love, and faith – I knew two things. I knew that what he described was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard of, the most right, and true, and everything I’d ever dreamed of living trapped in the brooding caverns. And I knew that as long as I lived, it would not come to pass. Maybe someday in the future, maybe after us. But I would not live to see it – and he might not either. And there was no sorrow in the world like what I felt at that.”

You hesitated, wanting to speak over her, to tell her she was wrong and ask her to have hope. She must have seen how you looked, because she shook her head. “I know you don’t agree with me, Meulin. You shouldn’t. But you must know I never wanted to be his disciple. Just his mother. As for yourself, I assure you, I doubt anything you do could make you a bad disciple. As long as you write his words, then one day his future really will come to pass. And it will be you that made it happen. That’s more than enough. The bodies you leave won’t matter, Meulin. Your books will.”

You took her hand and sat silently there with her as darkness settled over the cave. For those few silent hours, you felt closer with her than you’d ever been, even when you were a wriggler. By the time Kankri and Mituna woke, she was healed, and you traveled on like nothing had ever happened. But for the rest of your life you thought of that day whenever you needed to feel strong. Your words mattered, whatever your deeds, whatever your fate. The letters she taught you to write and the lessons he taught you to believe would outlast you all on pages and rocks and tongues, and that was all you needed to keep going - no matter what.

***

You never found out who did it, or what did it. You don’t even know if there was a snitch, or a final straw that broke her patience to pieces. But when it all came down, it happened fast.

You fought as hard as you could. All told, it lasted 10 minutes before each and every one of you was chained up and thrown into a cart bound for the capitol. The Condescension wanted the largest audience possible for her victory.

You were separated into cells on arrival, with the exception of Mituna. You never saw where he went, or when, and you only heard what happened in the aftermath from Darkleer. You wished when you did that you had killed him yourself, before they could even get near him. You almost wished you had never even saved him in the first place if that was what would become of it.

The next time you saw Kankri after that was bleeding out in public, tortured till he broke in front of a crowd of thousands. But you saw Porrim one more time before you were separated forever from them all.

It was only for a few minutes, a few hours before the execution was scheduled. Some misguided guard had taken pity on you maybe. Or maybe they were a sympathizer doing all they could for you without losing their own head. You didn’t ask. You just waited until the cell door was open and threw yourself on her feet, clinging to her as hard as you could. You didn’t cry, but you wanted to.

The door closed behind you. For a few seconds you just sat there, face buried in her lap. You needed a mother then, and for that moment, she was yours as much as she had ever been his.

You withdrew from her lap and she held you by the shoulders, looking right at you with a focus like you had never seen. “I need you to do something for me, Meulin.” She said.

You nodded back, and she continued. “I know your books have been lost to you. I’m sorry. We should have prepared better, but it’s too late now. I won’t ask you to survive; neither of us can make that happen. But if by some power, either of us gets out of this alive, we must be strong. We have to remember, because no one else will. Do you promise?”

“Yes.” You said, but she shook her head.

“Not like that. I know you, Meulin, because it’s the same for me. And I don’t know if I’ll be able to get on with it. If he dies, when he dies, it’s going to destroy us. It’s going to drain all the hope from the future, no matter what we believe. But that can’t stop us. It won’t stop me. I promise it won't. So promise me.”

You thought it over: every minute of your life with her, with Kankri, and Mituna. Disappearing in a flash, swallowed up by a wave, and his body broken and numb. You didn’t know if you could do it, when you thought of him.

So you thought of her. You looked at her, chained up, wearing rags, losing everything she’d ever worked for. She had the fire of a whole empire in her eyes.

“I promise.” You said.

And later that evening, clutching his raiment as Darkleer lowered his arrow and missed, you thought of her. When you ran and hid with nowhere left to run, you thought of her. When you took up your claws and dug into the beasts of the world, draining their blood into bowls, you thought of her. When you took up your brush and wrote the words she taught you, you thought of her. The bodies you left wouldn’t matter, not even his in the end, or hers, or yours, or Mituna’s. But stone was forever, and in that much, you and he would live on through the ages. And you and she would too.

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt regarding elaborating on the relationship between the Disciple and the Dolorosa. I'm not entirely sure I'm satisfied with this, even more than usual - it's sadder than I wanted it to be, and shorter - but this last fall/winter has had me much busier than I used to be this season so I am letting go.
> 
> Thanks to betas as always for your help; [pantslesswrock](pantslesswrock.tumblr.com) and [blooper-boy](blooper-boy.tumblr.com), y'all rock.
> 
> Incidentally, units of time in this fic are based off [this](http://ashkatom.tumblr.com/post/64185736667/for-information-and-the-math-on-how-we-came-up) Alternian calendar. It doesn't really become relevant in the fic much though.
> 
> Title is from "The Origin of Love" by Mika.


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